Minus the Blue Pencil

Talk about Lucknow Boy,A Memoir by Vinod Mehta,editor-in-Chief of the Outlook Group,was ripe on the grapevine,days before the book was launched. An anticipatory buzz circled the string of candid anecdotes that,we were told,sat inside the book. Mehta had named some powerful names,but without the swagger of an editor who wanted to use his pen as a sword. What got around would tempt even the ordinarily curious: telling accounts of encounters with LK Advani,Sonia Gandhi,Shobhaa De and VS Naipaul among others,a fond piece on his dog,Editor,and a confessional one on the daughter he sired when he was 21 but has never met till now.

When Lucknow Boy (Penguin,Rs 499) was formally launched at Delhi’s Le Meridien on Wednesday,Mehta regaled the curious and the serious with personal,social and political anecdotes in a disarming mix of spice and sugar free. “A decent chap,with a third-class degree in arts from the University of Lucknow,and an irrepressible pseudo-secularist; now a better human being because of a misbehaved dog,” is how he sized himself up.

Counselage partner,Suhel Seth,read excerpts from the book; the audience chuckled constantly and Times Now’s Arnab Goswami,(in conversation with the author) indulgently asked him questions about his past and present. But Mehta would doggedly return to self-deprecation. He spoke about being dumped by a girlfriend due to his ignorance of global affairs,how he learnt on-the-job as editor of Debonair,why proprietors fired him from his former editorships,why he found Nira Radia a Calamity Jane the moment he saw her,the effort it took him to invite Sonia Gandhi as chief guest for an Outlook function and why journalists must resist being friends with politicians.

Among those at the gathering were politicians like Kamal Nath and Rajiv Shukla,editors,writers,artists and everyone who works with Mehta currently or has done so in the past. Those who have known Mehta admire his cryptic turn of phrase,especially when he talks about a Bollywood diva or a politician. Those who don’t will realise why,when they read Lucknow Boy.